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SSP Secures ATM and Debit Card Transactions

S SP Solutions Inc., which provides solutions and services that enable secure, real-time movement of financial transactions and valued digital content, has announced the world's first secure and anonymous Internet commerce transaction solution securing ATM and debit cards as well as traditional credit cards for Internet purchasing.

Banco Nationale de Credito will go live with this technology via the Internet, using SSP's bundled hardware and software package uniquely enabling embedded two-factor authentication required for ATM, credit or debit transactions. The program will be available worldwide, but initially it will be rolled out to 2,000 consumers in the Dominican Republic.

The package includes the SSP Solutions-branded ETSS (Enhanced Transactional Secure Software) application and a secure SSP EMBASSY (EMBedded Application Security SYstem) card reader that connects directly to the consumer's PC. The reader is both mag-stripe and smart card compatible and uses a secure numeric keypad for PIN and password entries.

ETSS is the world's first embedded non-repudiation card present software that enables merchants to secure transactions without the actual credit, debit or ATM customer-ccount numbers available to the merchant, thereby protecting both the consumer and the merchant from account number database fraud and unauthorized intrusions. Both VISA and Mastercard are supported by this technology.

SSP also exclusively licensed, on a worldwide basis, the marketing and deployment rights of ETSS software originally developed by a joint venture of SSP and Freestar Technologies. Banco National de Credito is the first major banking organization to actively deploy this solution.

SSP develops and distributes the SSP Security Suite of hardware, software and embedded security products. SSP products fully protect electronic communications and financial transactions, network access, and the exchange of copyrighted digital content. By combining its own technology with a range of partners' technologies and intellectual properties, SSP products represent the first, open embedded security architecture simultaneously supporting public key infrastructure (PKI) and multiple standards of digital rights management.

SSP's custom-made enterprise security solutions address digital rights management, financial services, government, entertainment, health care, and education, and form the heart of a 10-year alliance with Electronic Data Systems, the nation's largest systems integrator and a global leader in information assurance.

Freestar Technologies Inc.'s Enhanced Transactional Secure Software ("ETSS") represents a proprietary software package that enables consumers to initiate secure e-commerce transactions over the Internet using credit, debit, ATM (with PIN) or smart cards.

The ETSS system integrates a consumer-side card-swipe terminal with a back- end host-processing center. It encrypts sensitive financial data at the consumer's personal computer, using powerful Data Encryption Standard (DES) encryption and algorithms, and it sends an authorization number to the e- commerce merchant, rather than the consumer's credit card information, to provide a maximum level of security. Freestar plans to link several large, established smart card systems together on an ETSS-based standard to achieve economies of scale and further market penetration for this secure e- commerce payment system.

"Merchants are anxious to leverage ATM and debit card business opportunities, expanding their customer base and reducing repudiation and fraud associated with traditional credit card transactions," said Rob Gorman, Managing Director of Strategic Affairs for SSP Solutions. "We're moving quickly to support this initiative and deliver a powerful product specifically designed to secure ATM and debit customer segments for online shopping."

For more information about SSP Solutions, visit its Web site at www.sspsolutions.com, phone 949-655-4500, or fax 949-655-4501. For more information about Freestar Technologies, visit its Web site at www.freestartech.com or phone Haydee Marquez, Investor Relations, 809-732- 5911 or John Paul Salvador, Market Intelligence U.S., 818-789-0100.